Reading in French

Last weekend I gave a reading in French! I live in Quebec (obviously in the French-speaking part of Canada), and I`ve always been interested in literature in other languages. A while back, just for kicks I translated the first page of "The Lava in My Bones" into French. I wanted to see what it sounded like in the language of Molière. Translating just one page was not easy. I speak French daily here in Montreal, but writing literary French is a whole other story. It took hours of checking grammar books etc. to make sure I got everything right. Then preparing for the reading was the next step. I underlined the difficult words and practised them over and over so I didn`t flub them in public when I got nervous. It`s the damned r's and the difficult "u" (like in "tu" or "rue") that always trip me up. In any case the event was really enjoyable, and I was happy with how my reading went. All the authors and spectators there were wonderfully tolerant of my heavily accented French. It`s great to meet francophone writers as well, many of which are largely unknown in English-Canada.